Sunday, July 02, 2006

Election Day

Today (Sunday) was election day for Mexico. Thankfully, even thought the teachers here had threatened to boycott or block the election, everything seemed to go smoothly. We went out to Zaachila for curch today (got back from the beach on Saturday), and we passed a voting place where it looked like they were making a party of it. I just checked the news on CNN, and they said that the election is too close to call, between Lopez Obrador, a left leaning person who promises to help the poor, and Calderon, a much more conservative person who says that Obrador's spending to help the poor will bankrupt the nation. Anyway, since it's so close we won't know the final results until Wednesday.

We kind of ignored all this political drama, even though it only happens once every six years and is quite exciting this year. After an almost two hour service we just stood around talking for while (that's the boring part of being a missionary kid...). Then we went over to some friend's house to eat lucn. It was good, but guess what they did? More talking. A lot more. To make up for it we did get to go out for nieves afterwards. I got tuna (the cactus fruit) and leche quemada (burnt milk). Very, very good. In fact, I was thinking that the day before we fly out of here I should buy a couple of liters of nieves out there, ice it up, and carry it with me on the airplane, along with all the Mexican Coke I want to bring back. :) :)

This afternoon we continued what we started last Tuesday and Wednesday: packing and sorting endless boxes filled with everything (in my stuff, at least) from a bull's horn from Ecuador to books that I enjoyed two years ago to my aquarium that I had when we were here before. A lasge part of my things are souvenirs form the different places I've been, so it's easy to go through them and just keep them all. My parents have more stuff such as my dad's pastor's books and my mom's kichen utensils that is harder to decide what to do with, so I guess I have it relatively easy. If you want to pray for us, you can pray that we get enough people to come and buy the stuff, that we can get it all unpacked and sorted in good time, and that we can bring some closure to our time here in Oaxaca (you don't really get much closure when you leave for a year and never come back to live...).

First pic: My family with the family of a leader of the church in Zaachila.Second pic: Another beautiful view from Huatulco. It was a pity we could just stay there two nights.Third pic: A voting place near our house.